"Oh, you dear thing!" cried Jack, leaping from the window-seat and nearly strangling me, while Smudge rubbed himself lovingly against my dress; "oh, you dear, darling, delightful old Esther, how pleased I am to see you!" (Certainly Jack was not undemonstrative.) "Oh, it has been so horrid the last few days--father ill, and mother always with him, and Fred as cross as two sticks, and Carrie always too busy or too tired for any one to speak to her; and Dot complaining of pain in his back and not caring to play, oh!" finished Jack, with a long-drawn sigh, "it has been almost too horrid." "Hush, Jack," was my sole reply; for there was dear mother coming down the passage toward us. I had only been away from her two months, and yet it struck me that her hair was grayer and her face was thinner than it used to be, and there were lines on her forehead that I never remember to have seen before; but she greeted me in her old affectionate way, putting back my hair from my face to look at me, and calling me her dear child. "But I must not stop a moment, Esther," she said hurriedly, "or father will miss me; take off your hat, and rest and refresh yourself, and then you shall come up and see him." "But, mother, where is Dot?" "In there," motioning toward the sick room; "he is always there, we cannot keep him out," and her lip trembled. When Jack and I returned to the brown room, we found the others gathered round the table. Carrie, who was pouring out the tea, pointed to the seat beside her. It was the first dreary meal I had ever remembered in the brown room; my first evening at home had always been so happy. The shallow blue teacups and tiny plates always seemed prettier than other people's china, and nothing ever tasted so delicious as our home-made brown bread and butter. But this evening the flavor seemed spoiled. Carrie sat in mother's place looking sad and abstracted, and fingering her little silver cross nervously. Fred was downcast and out of spirits, returning only brief replies to Uncle Geoffrey's questions, and only waking up to snub Jack if she spoke a word. Oh, how I wished Allan would make his appearance and put us all right! It was quite a relief when I heard mother's voice calling me, and she took me into the great cool room where father lay. Dot was curled up in mother's great arm-chair, with his favorite book of natural history; he slipped a hot little hand in mine as I passed him.